Gavin Price on the possibility of making a kart racer (during this interview):

Gavin Price wrote:We hear that quite a bit. When we first set up Playtonic, I thought a karting game might actually be the first game we do, but let's wait and see.

And he's right -- a kart racer is by far the most requested future game on these forums.

It got me thinking: how important is it for a future Playtonic kart racer to include online multiplayer? Playtonic seem to promote local multiplayer, which certainly has its benefits, but I think a modern-day kart racer wouldn't be nearly as fun, or replayable, without the online play.

What do you guys think?

The online multiplayer poll is a part of the discussion, but not the sole reason for this thread; feel free to share your general thoughts/ideas on Playtonic making a kart racing game after Yooka-Laylee!

Undoubtedly an exciting idea. Part of me would like to see another game to develop the cast, settings, and story a bit more. It was cool how Diddy Kong Racing preceded Banjo, Conker, and Star Fox Adventures, but I think the characters and environments lacked the strong sense of personality of the best Mario Karts.

Would be great if the title built on a solid Playtoncic Universe foundation, while still alluding to future titles.

Online:

Would rather not. Playing Mario Kart games online never felt very interpersonally interactive. You can't really gauge another players personity by how they time a power slide, or which item they happen to use on you ... you can still tell they're not cpu, but only just. Kart games seem best played locally, where you can yell and see each others faces, from my experience.

Not making it online would be a waste in this age of internet videos and streaming. Being Playtonic's hypothetical second game would mean they could use the atention, especially since I'm sure the game would be full of surprises to make it stand out.

Undoubtedly an exciting idea. Part of me would like to see another game to develop the cast, settings, and story a bit more.

It was cool how Diddy Kong Racing preceded Banjo, Conker, and Star Fox Adventures, but I think the characters and environments lacked the strong sense of personality of the best Mario Karts.

Would be great if the title built on a solid Playtoncic Universe foundation, while still alluding to future titles.

This is a very valid point. Knowing about the characters and their place in the story certainly adds something special to Mario Kart and may help to explain the game's longevity. However, I think it could work in reverse, too. Foreshadowing characters before they get their own game, just like in DKR as you mentioned, could be an interesting concept. It's not like all of Mario Kart's roster had their own games when the first titles emerged -- most still do not.

After the release of Yooka-Laylee, a good portion of the roster will be at least somewhat familiar to anybody who has played it (Trowzer, Capital B, Dr Puzz, Dr Quack, Rextro, Clara, Kartos [Kartos riding a kart -- just imagine that] etc.); I think that's solid foundation to build on and truly establish the "Marvel universe" end-goal that Playtonic are striving for.

Meinhard1 wrote:Online:

Would rather not. Playing Mario Kart games online never felt very interpersonally interactive. You can't really gauge another players personity by how they time a power slide, or which item they happen to use on you ... you can still tell they're not cpu, but only just. Kart games seem best played locally, where you can yell and see each others faces, from my experience.

Interesting take on things. Personally, I played Mario Kart 8 online for weeks on end -- I loved it. I think playing against real people is a totally different experience to AI; you just cannot (yet) program an AI to convincingly think and strategies in the same way as a human opponent. Even without any way to communicate, I think it's far preferable to playing against the computer.

I do agree that a kart racer does indeed shine best when played around the TV with friends, but this is not always possible for a lot of people. Unlike Yooka-Laylee, which can shine just as brightly when played alone, I think a kart racer would struggle without the player vs. player competitive edge.

These days I think it would be very important that a kart racing game have online multiplayer. Racing games by their very nature are well suited for multiplayer, so making it as easy as possible for someone to find other people to race against is important. Local couch-based multiplayer is fun and should be an option, but what if your friends live far away or just don't like the game or racing games in general? That's where online multiplayer comes in. Of course the game could make up for this with computer controlled players, and that's good, but that's generally not going to feel the same as playing against real players.

For a PC version, I would go so far as to say that it's absolutely essential to have online multiplayer for a racing game. This is because playing local multiplayer splitscreen on a computer monitor is...well it's small. Given the choice between local splitscreen multiplayer on a TV for a console game, and local splitscreen multiplayer on a computer monitor for a PC game, which would you prefer?

My ideal kart racing game would include both online and local multiplayer, and the option of racing against computer controlled players as well.

Tek wrote:My ideal kart racing game would include both online and local multiplayer, and the option of racing against computer controlled players as well.

Mine too. I also think it would be great to expand the online functionality to allow friends to join a group and play together against the rest of the world.

That would be a great feature to have. Hopefully any such feature would allow for the friend groups to include multiple players on the same system. For example, a group of 3 or 4 friends all playing split-screen on the same console being able to join an online game together against other online players. I seem to recall a couple of games over the years that I've had trouble playing online with more than 1 player on my console at the same time.

It won't be easy to capture the feeling of DKR and resist the urge to create a Mario Kart clone. It even happened to "old" Rare: Mickey's Speedway USA was a decent fun racer but ignored everything that made DKR great while copying a lot of Mario Kart's characteristics.

But yeah, in theory I'm all in for a spiritual successor to DKR! My wish list:

Add some new twists and ideas and there you go! I agree that "missions" would be a nice addition to a game like this.

DKR was always a lot more about skill than Mario Kart. The single player mode was quite challenging and you just couldn't win with dumb luck - you had to know the courses, which items to use, which character to pick and how to use a combination of sliding and braking to take tight turns.

I have to agree that this is also a disadvantage of DKR... In Mario Kart everyone can pick up the controller and play since there are many items and random circumstances to help lesser talented players. It's not enough to beat some high scoring Japanese pro gamer you meet online but with a little luck they might reach the podium after a few races. In DKR's multiplayer people usually lost their interest pretty quickly when they realized they couldn't beat me due to my single player experience... That's why I was excited to check out the online mode of the NDS version - unfortunately I didn't meet a single player because the online community was pretty much dead when I finally managed to set up the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection a few years ago.

tl;dr: I'd love it to have an online mode since in a true DKR successor you probably won't have a lot of fun in local multiplayer due to the possible lack of skilled combatants.

I would be up for a kart racer. Something different to Mario Kart, kind of like diddy Kong but different. Probably best to avoid strange racing styles though. Planes were alright in Diddy Kong Racing but a different story in Banjo Pilot. I'd quicker go back to Mario Kart 64 than Diddy Kong Racing nowadays basically.

Mario Kart 8 is so so good, way better than I ever thought a kart racer could be. I adore that game, and honestly the online is a pretty big reason for that? I felt like it worked a lot better than one would expect, and I'm looking forward to jumping back into it in April with MK8 Deluxe.

So in that regard, yeah I think online is absolutely necessary at this point. Not at the cost of local multiplayer of course, especially not in that genre, but I would be sorely disappointed if I wasn't able to play with people online.

I would love to see the adventure mode stuff and the different vehicle stuff make a comeback in a game, though unlike YL I would hope that they paid more attention to modern design trends with racing games when it came to handling and controls.

GeneralWalnut wrote:unlike YL I would hope that they paid more attention to modern design trends with racing games when it came to handling and controls.

I agree. By all means, please experiment beyond a typical Mario Kart clone to include interesting and creative elements, such as boss battles and a story mode, but slippery controls are not what I want. I actually think Mario Kart 8 has perfect controls, and I don't think Playtonic's kart racer should deviate much from that.

GeneralWalnut wrote:unlike YL I would hope that they paid more attention to modern design trends with racing games when it came to handling and controls.

I agree. By all means, please experiment beyond a typical Mario Kart clone to include interesting and creative elements, such as boss battles and a story mode, but slippery controls are not what I want. I actually think Mario Kart 8 has perfect controls, and I don't think Playtonic's kart racer should deviate much from that.

Yeah, I have trouble going back to Diddy Kong Racing now for that very reason. It maybe isn't as dramatically obsolete control wise as something like Goldeneye, but still is very clear that it is a genre that has made some huge leaps and bounds over the years.

The question on my mind is whether a Playtonic kart racer will be profitable. Mario Kart seems a bit untouchable; I cannot think of any other kart racer in recent years that can compete with it in terms of popularity.

I don't think anything can surpass Yooka-Laylee's hype and interest in the general public -- it was a revival of a genre by the veterans who essentially made the genre in the first place. The obvious next game would be a sequel to Yooka-Laylee, but I really don't think Playtonic will go down this route right away.

I guess it's quite hard for me to fully distinguish between what I selfishly want to play as a fan (kart racer), and what will work commercially for the company. Then again, maybe Playtonic shouldn't pay any interest to trends and simply make what they want to make!

While I adore Diddy Kong Racing for everything else, the controls were a pain (or much rather, they are a pain when I go back to this game). It's very slippery and I not really that logical to me. They'll need to reach a MK8 standard of precision. This is going to be the biggest effort they would have to make for such a game. Well, this and online multiplayer. Unlike Fast RMX, this will probably have a lot of items, which makes coding much more complicated. We believe in you, Chris!

The game that comes out next week? I think they have a couple minutes to look to the future now.

I'd love a Kart Racer. My own 2 cents is - I hope they do another adventure game first to expand the Playtonic Universe a little bit, and THEN do a Kart Racer. I agree with some of the above sentiments that I like how every character in Mario Kart has its own world and story.

But of course, if a Kart Racer came next I would totally still buy it. I'd love to see a world-based Kart Racer like DKR was. Themed worlds with themed races. I wouldn't be mad if they were cup-based though. Maybe a hybrid approach could even world. Some world exploring like DKR, and then every world has 3-4 cups or something. I don't necessarily need the boss races from DKR though.

I'm rambling now but whatever Playtonic does I'm sure I'll buy it and I'm sure I'll like it.